What do gifted children do on the first day of school holidays? Head to university!

Like countless children around the state, seven-year-old Gabby Pellow was up early on the first day of the school holidays preparing for a fun day. But unlike many of her peers, she was on her way to university.

"The way my daughter describes it," said Karen Pellow, "is that 'it's fun when I use my brain'. It's playing for her."

The holiday enrichment workshops for gifted children at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) have been welcomed by parents.

"The children are really excited to explore subject topics they just don't get to at school," Ms Pellow said.

USQ lecturer in special education Mark Oliver says exposing children to a variety of academic fields at an early age has many benefits.

"Kids, particularly very bright kids, can go in multiple directions, and can have difficulty if they don't know what they are really interested in," he said.

"We know that interest is a very strong component of choosing a career.

"Getting them out to talk to professors and researchers is a very strong model for them," he said.

Mr Oliver worked with gifted children in the USA and says inviting them onto the university campus can have immediate results.

"A 15-year-old discovered a new gene on the second day of a camp like this in a university in the USA. She's now just turned 23 and about to finish a PHD in molecular biology. She met other gifted kids her own age and developed a passion. She wasn't getting that inside a school context," he said.

Thirsty for knowledge

Ms Pellow says raising gifted children brings a whole set of interesting challenges for parents.

"They have a thirst for knowledge. And not just knowledge they can repeat back to you, but knowledge they can apply and experiment with," she said.

Lucy Macfarlane agrees. She has two gifted children, and says it can be a steep learning curve for parents.

"It forces you into subject areas you hadn't investigated before," she said.

"You certainly spend a lot of time on the internet finding answers to a lot of their questions!"

But Ms Macfarlane is quick to point out gifted kids are still kids.

"In my son's experience, he still went through all the normal phases young boys can go through, like a great interest in sharks and dinosaurs. It's just the level of investigation they go through," she said.

"When he went through a snake obsession at the age of four he read all the books on snakes in the town library, and then asked the town librarian to access books throughout Queensland on snakes because he was still looking for information."

Ms Pellow says she enrolled her daughter into a school that went to grade 12 to make use of the secondary school resources.

Gabby completed year 10 science in year two.

"She absolutely adored it," Ms Pellow said.

"The teacher was wonderful. And from what I heard, it kept the teenage boys on their toes, because they wanted to make sure they weren't outdone by a little girl in class!"

Staying engaged

Mr Oliver says inviting young students onto the university campus in Toowoomba is the first step of what he hopes is a long relationship with gifted students.

"They are an underserviced population in the education system," he said.

Ms Pellow added, "the curriculum in year two or three doesn't cover quantum physics or astronomy!"

"That's one of the key issues with workshops like this, we're giving children an opportunity to be exposed to information they want to learn that's not part of the day to day school life," she said.

"By providing them with opportunities we're opening up their minds to what the possibilities might be. We're trying to keep them engaged; Give them a look into different avenues as to what's out there."

While emphasising the importance of not putting any expectations or pressure on her children, Ms Macfarlane says it's exciting to see her children mixing with other like-minded kids at the university.

"It's certainly exciting to think these are our future scientists and inventors," she said.

Trigonometry and quantum mechanics aren't the usual topic of conversation for grade two students, but for a group of gifted southern Queenslanders, they're the perfect things to explore in the school holidays.
(Peter Gunders - ABC Southern Qld)